


On Watch

by Mikey (mikes_grrl)



Category: State of Play (2009)
Genre: Gen, Snippets, cut-scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-03
Updated: 2009-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikes_grrl/pseuds/Mikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DCI Bell is watching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Watch

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a warm up to writing SoP fic; I thought it might be a set up for something longer, but a few months later, I realize it is not. Standing on its own as a small study of a scene from the show, it just is, and isn't going anywhere, but I like it enough to share.

He stood quietly in the rain, watching. He knew that man, a reporter, and he saw how Della Smith talked to him, hit him, _accused_ him. Bell knew there was much more to that story and one life, DI Stu Brown, who was a good man and a decent cop and one hell of a nice guy, was already spent on these lies. As a police officer, Bell spent years watching people lie to him, for every reason from the sensible to the murderous, and he still did not understand why they tried. The truth always came out, ugly or neat or cruel – the truth was like bile a sick man could not keep down. He was watching that girl swallow, now, trying to keep it inside, but the truth was making her ill.

Bell was furious, but he held himself in check. It would do no good to accost them, especially not that one, he was a scavenger who fed on the bloody scraps of police bones. He knew the breed, and they were useful at times but right now Bell wanted to slam the bastard into a cell and let him rot. Impossible idea, but alluring.

The reporter did not see him as he moved gracefully around the car, forcing Della inside. He looked exasperated and tired, both feelings Bell could sympathize with but felt no pity for. If this man was behind any of this, he brought his own fate down on him and Bell would be glad to lock him up in the same cell as Stu's murderer. Petty thinking but sometimes it boiled down to that, on this job: aiming for righteousness and hoping for justice and accepting the limitations of the law.

#####


End file.
